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  • johnpi 11:26 pm on December 14, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: , , HPV, , , , sexually transmitted disease, , , women's health   

    The HPV vaccine mandate for immigrant women has been eliminated.

    This week the reproductive justice movement is celebrating a significant victory. Effective December 14, immigrant women and girls will no longer be forced to get Gardasil, a vaccine developed by Merck and Company to prevent transmission of the strains of human papillomavirus (HPV) linked to cervical cancer. This marks the reversal of a harmful and discriminatory rule originally put in place in July 2008 by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that took away the ability of immigrant women and girls to make informed choices of whether or not to get the Gardasil injection.

    The regimen of shots for HPV, which is sexually transmitted, costs $360, creating additional financial and legal barriers for green card applicants. Also,

    …progressive groups acknowledged that the mandatory use of a medical procedure on a targeted population when it is not required of the general population is discriminatory. Like their U.S. citizen counterparts, all prospective immigrant women should have the opportunity to make an informed decision about their use of the HPV vaccine, weighing both the potential costs and health benefits of using the vaccine.

    The vaccine is recommended but not required for the general population.

     

    • Bryan Jenkins 7:32 pm on April 28, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I have a friend who got cervical cancer because of HPV. right now she is under going chemotherapy and some anti-cancer drugs. . ‘

  • johnpi 10:22 am on November 12, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: , , food restrictions, , , , , , , , women's health   

    We don’t blog alot about health issues here, and for Western Muslims, I don’t think anybody who does health studies ever looks at us specifically in a way that it would be a ‘Muslim’ story, but there are huge trends in the larger society and it’s fair to ask how much or whether we are a part of them, and how much a specific ‘Muslim lifestyle’ plays into those trends.

    Studies suggest overweight kids are coronary time bombs.

    Russell Pate was driving through a neighborhood one late afternoon when he noticed something odd.

    He couldn’t hear the sounds of children playing. No jump rope patter. No squeals of a bike’s brake. No crack of a bat — just silence.

    The streets were deserted because the neighborhood kids were cocooned in their homes, Pate says. It was a scene he’s seen over and over again.

    “Now you can drive through entire neighborhoods where you know there are a lot of young kids there and hardly see any of them out,” says Pate, an American Heart Association spokesman.
    ….

    A study released last November at a Heart Association conference found that the neck arteries in obese and overweight children were similar to those of 45-year-olds. The children in the study also had “abnormal cholesterol” and were said to be at high risk for heart disease in the future.

    The story cites television, video games, the obsession with testing and fast food as culprits. Here in the West, Muslims are usually well-off and well-fed, but despite (or perhaps because of) fasting, food and modesty restrictions, are Western Muslims fat?

     

    • johnpi 10:34 am on November 12, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Thanks to the Talk Islam archives, a Hijabman story that Andrea Useem linked to…

      Back then, the Sunday school curriculum consisted of memorization as well as reading through various Islamic stories. Unfortunately, none of those ideas were applicable to my [then] current reality as a pubescent Muslim kid growing up in America. The lessons certainly didn’t contain anything about eating right, for instance. The closest they came to engaging my life outside the mosque was the oft-repeated slogan, “Islam isn’t a religion; it is a way of life.”

      A decade later, I found myself wandering through the halls of ISCJ. It wasn’t long before I stumbled upon a vending machine filled with junk. I thought back to every other mosque I’ve visited, and I began to see a pattern. Some mosques have soda machines as well—proudly advertising Coca-Cola. Here we have a captive audience of Muslims who regularly attend the mosque—and what do we offer them? 
Obesity and tooth decay? For a little profit? What kind of message does that send?

      • null 10:48 am on November 12, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        zomg, HijabMan is engaged!

        • johnpi 10:56 am on November 12, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          lol :-)

          I saw that too. Another Muslim blogger lost to domestic family life….

          Just kidding. Inshallah, he’ll still have time and energy for writing/blogging.

    • abunoor 1:30 pm on November 12, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Oy, Habibti has been running a series of posts on Health and Fitness which is, I believe geared towards Muslim women.

      Brother Siraaj at Muslimbestlife is a health and fitness nut as well. and started something at Muslim Matters called the MM Fit Life Competition.

      I’m sure there’s a lot else out there. There are a lot of Muslims who grew up in this country who are big into health and fitness and diet and all that stuff. Of course, there are also many like myself who are not so much into those things (at least talking about them).

      • johnpi 3:57 pm on November 12, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        I would offer to chip in for your gym membership, but I suspect you make more money than I do, barrister. :-)

    • vince 1:13 am on November 25, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      The People” have had enough apparently!

      An “insider” revealed today that the “World of Medicine” is scamming people – and even worse: with the help of “law-makers!”

      It seems that “money” (as usual) has blinded doctors and medical practitioners to the degree that they are now willingly *suppressing* the truth regarding Heart Disease – its control, management, and even its cure!

      That’s right: “cure!”

      And what should shock you even more:

      It seems that it’s against the law to say the word “cure” when describing anything that actually cures you.

      Yet it’s very much okay to say that something “treats” or helps “offset” the symptoms of some health condition or disease.

      But if you say “cure” (and even including when you in fact have a real and bona fide cure for something and can even prove it!) you can get arrested.

      Ever wonder why we have a “healthcare” industry and not a “healthcure” industry?

      It’s simply because no one’s out to “cure” anyone because there’s little money in doing so.

      Instead, keeping you sick and marginally pain-free is all anyone’s really out to do for you these days – as doing so means you being “forced” to buy all the same drugs over and over again, and again, and … (you get the point!)

      Of course, if a cure came along it would mean you buy it one time, and then you’re cured – and that’s that (over and done!)

      But a number of doctors, philanthropists, and just plain old “good folks” armed with “real answers” and “real solutions” are stepping up and are NOT afraid of “Uncle Big-Bully Brother!”

      One courageous fellow by the name of Melford Bibens, CPT, is doing exactly this, as he’s helped others overcame “naturally” the condition known as “Heart Disease!”

      Not only that, but Melford has lectured and personally helped individuals beat the disease to the point that proven sufferers have actually gotten re-diagnoses as “no longer having the disease at all!” (Something that’s pretty much always been ruled out as a possibility altogether! – and now which may even be against the law!)

      But it’s not certain how long Melford will be allowed to do this because “Uncle Sambo” has actually started using “Gestapo” tactics whereby people and businesses truly offering “cures” have been raided with masked armed police who even go to the point of forcing customers in the stores to get down on the floor at gunpoint!

      So, if you’re wise and want to find out about this while it’s still possible for you to do so, then just visit this link now:

      ~~~> http://www.UltimateHealthyHeart.com/cashman

      But don’t be surprised if one day soon you return to find this site completely removed with a US Flag waving in its place (in the name of “freedom” no less!)

    • Caramoan8 9:48 am on December 26, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      The only way you can manage obesity is throught Proper Diet and lots of exercise. The human body is designed for work so we should always get some form of physical exercise to stay fit.
      `

  • johnpi 8:14 am on June 8, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: girls athletics, girls sports and Muslims, , , , , women's health   

    The hymen curse:

    Women are taught that our hymens are a secret: a gift representing our virginities that we should never share with anyone but our husbands. Instead of being a gift, however, it really functions more as a curse. Our early lives are often shaped around the hymen and its protection: we may be kept from playing sports, using tampons, having male friends, and riding horses for fear that our hymens may break (or be broken) and our virginities rendered void.

    One of my daughter’s new good friends is a 9-year-old Iraqi refugee girl (about 6 months in US). When their family comes over to my house I let the kids ride the bikes I have here. The girl loves riding bikes, but she is only allowed to ride the little kids’ bike where her knees are nearly hitting the handlebars, rather than one of the larger bikes that is more appropriate to her size. The family was gifted bikes for the father and brother, but not for her. I was wondering if this may be the issue.

     

    • null 8:44 am on June 8, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Women are taught that our hymens are a secret: a gift representing our virginities that we should never share with anyone but our husbands. Instead of being a gift, however, it really functions more as a curse. Our early lives are often shaped around the hymen and its protection: we may be kept from playing sports, using tampons, having male friends, and riding horses for fear that our hymens may break (or be broken) and our virginities rendered void.

      Can’t say I’ve experienced this myself. Yes, being chaste is encouraged. No hanging out with boys and the like. But bikes, tampons, horses, sports? Geez.

  • johnpi 8:08 pm on May 6, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: , , , , , , women's health   

    Related to my previous post, a teen Muslimah ventures into the realm of media criticism and expresses a complaint about the lack of certain images of hijabis on the web:

    Why doesn’t there seem to be action hijabis on google?! Why do all hijabis have to be posing? I’ve been googling hijabi w/hijab flying in the wind since forever. But there’s nothing! Or a hijabi running or jumping or cleaning or playing or eating…

     

  • johnpi 7:48 pm on May 6, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: , , , , women's health   

    Women’s sports clubs have become widely popular in Saudi Arabia as a culture of women’s fitness has taken hold. But the Saudi government now says it will close all of the unlicensed private operations down, leaving only expensive clubs in medical facilities.

    Blogger Saudiwoman, who was misquoted and misidentified by the Arab News hacks in the article linked above, writes about this new development (I’ve edited one sentence in this quote for grammar and clarity.)

    Women only sports clubs have been popping up everywhere and their fees are now within reach of the average woman. They offer aerobic classes, self-defense and even salsa dancing. However they have no legal licensing umbrella because according to the government all forms of exercise are for men only. So the owners of these clubs get a license for a salon or a child activity center and then expand from there. Ultra conservatives are dead against these establishments because they believe that they lead Saudi women to sin through the influence of and interaction with unsavory feminists, and sometimes they even go so far as to claim lesbians work there and frequent the clubs (according to the muttawa sexually repressed wild imagination). Moreover they believe that exercise goes against femininity and that it is an exclusively manly domain.

    “Exercise goes against femininity” – yeah, sure. Exercise is important to overall mental health and helps stave off or improve control over mental illness. Such ‘ultra-conservatives’ must consider madness and poor mental health to be expressions of “normal” feminity, since they are more likely to be present among the women in their families who, no doubt, are prohibited from exercise.

     

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